Design and static behavior of beam-to-beam-tied connection for modular steel buildings

Abstract

Modular steel building(MSB) is the high-end prefabricated building product with outstanding advantages of high assembly rate and environmental friendliness. Specially, the connections between modules are critical parts that can strongly influence the overall structural stability and robustness. This study presented an innovate MSB connection design that has the intermediate plug-in device and beamto-beam bolting system as horizontal and vertical connecting respectively. Detailed connecttion and features for MSBs were introduced. Then static behaviors of the different position connection were investigated through static monotonic loading tests, including one direction corner connection and two direction inner connection. Effect of diagonal stiffener was discussed trough experimental tests. Results showed that gaps formed between upper and bottom columns can influence the deforming patterns and bending demand distributions at each unit joints